10 of 11Follmer drove Vasek Polak's Porsche 934 Turbo to his second Trans Am title in 1976.

Photo by Blake Z. Rong

11 of 11At 39, Follmer was the oldest F1 driver in 1973 when he finished 6th at Kyalami in this DN1 Shadow.

Photo by Blake Z. Rong

To hear Woody Woodward tell it, George Follmer had a reputation for wrecking cars. "I came from the East Coast," said Follmer's eventual crew chief and friend, "and I hadn't seen anything like it: I mean, there's fender paint trading all over the place, fenders bashed in, bumpers, wheels breaking—and I recall reading articles about George being reprimanded in prior years for 'excessive driving.' But he was driving for somebody else [at the time]. I didn't care, he could do whatever he wanted do to."

Which meant that when Woodward became in charge of Penske Racing's brand-new Porsche 917 race car in the 1972 Can Am season, the last choice he'd want for someone to touch the car was this Follmer guy, someone he had only read about in Competition Press (our fair predecessor). Mark Donohue was hurt. One of their two race cars was destroyed. Roger Penske needed to do something at Road Atlanta, and quick.

"And the next day Roger flies out to Atlanta, gets me to the side and says, 'Woody, I've just made arrangements that George Follmer is going to drive the car this weekend.' And I said, 'Are you crazy?' I only had one car left, we had very few spare parts, and George is flying in. So he comes in from the West Coast, never seen this strange-looking car before. And he got in that car and sat it on the pole, won the first race—I believe he lapped the field. I was just blown away.

"I was so worried about him destroying my race car—he never put a scratch on my car."

George Follmer is the greatest racing driver you may never have heard of. Imagine Schumacher's talent in a car twice as powerful and even more likely to kill you. Imagine racing with Parnelli Jones, Donohue, Dan Gurney, Sam Posey, John Morton, Hurley Haywood. Imagine being Roger Penske's go-to wheelman. Imagine repeating this success across three or four teams in the same season in a span of four years. Imagine sticking around 'til septuagenarian years, ripe enough to be honored at the Petersen Automotive Museum by your closest friends, rivals and associates...

...which is exactly how it happened last Thursday, in the halls of the Petersen. A selection of Follmer's cars was there, including the 550A Spyder that started his career in 1960, earning him a Rookie of the Year award from the SCCA at 25—a difficult age to start racing. The most recognizable Trans-Am heroes were also present: Penske's blue Camaro, the yellow Mustang, AMC's patriotic Javelin. The tribute featured a silent auction that included such items as a massive photo—donated by journalist Pete Lyons—of a stern Follmer gazing at a helmeted and ready Parnelli Jones in the Trans-Am Mustang. "I think he was trying to get me out of the car," said Jones. "Though he's never threatened to beat me up, either."

Follmer's long racing career reads with almost superhuman talent—he bounced merrily from Formula One to IndyCar, from NASCAR to humble yet quick beginnings in SCCA, from Sebring to Le Mans to Laguna Seca, from 137-hp Porsche 550A Speedsters to 1,000-hp 917/10s. In almost every form of road racing in the 20th century, Follmer won races. He won national championships in two of the hairiest racing series ever devised: Trans-Am and Can-Am, in cars from under-tired Mustangs to Lola T333s, the latter resulting in a frightening crash that launched Follmer off of Laguna Seca's Corkscrew, nose first, into one of the area's famous hills. He was "a hell of a race driver," said Jim Hall, the builder of those famous Chapparals, which Follmer beat in 1965 with a Porsche 904-engined Lotus 23—of all cars. "I don't care what the hell these other guys say about you, you're my man."

Follmer's first effort in Trans Am was behind the wheel of this 1967 Penske Camaro. Photo by Petersen Automotive Museum

Follmer's Trans-Am career became intertwined with soon-to-be-legendary team owner Penske from the very beginning. Penske called Follmer in 1967 with a simple request: Donohue, whom Follmer had proven to be faster than in Can-Am, was committed to the big show at Le Mans; could Follmer substitute at Mid-Ohio in the famous blue Penske Camaro? Follmer accepted and finished his first-ever Trans-Am race with a third on the podium.

He moved on to the AMC's factory team, true underdogs on the track and in the market. The Javelin faced an uphill battle against the Mustangs—the very same ones he would race with Jones two years later in 1970. But in the meanwhile, Follmer won a 150-mile stint at the Jimmy Bryan 150 in Phoenix, Ariz., driving a Cheetah IndyCar with a stock Chevy block—by the end of the race, he was three laps ahead of second-place Wally Dallenbach. It was one of Follmer's most memorable races—to this day, he is the only driver to win an IndyCar race with a stock block.

Back at Trans-Am, and back in the AMC. It was 1972 by now, a year that would prove to be very, very good for Follmer. His success in the ex-Penske Javelin cinched him the national championship by July, when Penske gave him another call. The team owner had a dilemma: Follmer's teammate, Donohue, had crashed one of Penske's new wicked, air-cooled, turbocharged, flat-12 monsters. The 917 is a car that needs little introduction; its reputation is well-earned, forged in mangled steel and hospital stays. Indeed, Donohue was out with a leg injury. Follmer had never driven the 917 before, or anything approaching twice the power of the Trans-Am cars. He got in the 917 at Road Atlanta, and true to Woodward's word above, won his very first time in one of the most powerful race cars ever built.

Teething problems followed at Watkins Glen, but when Woodward's team sorted the car out by Mid-Ohio, Follmer went back to his stride: "We went to the fourth race of the season, at Mid-Ohio—Donohue was back, helping as an engineer, and we made a bunch of changes, George sat it on the pole, ran it in the rain, didn't lose it, and again, lapped the field and he hit his stride for the rest of the year.

"He won every race except for the two that Mark won. We never explained to George that when you clear the field, you start short-shifting to save fuel—and he ran out of gas, about 100 yards from the finish line."

Therefore, in 1972, Follmer became the only driver to win both the Trans-Am and Can-Am championships. No one else can claim to share that accomplishment. The Golden Age of Trans-Am ended with 1972; two years later, Can-Am folded. "[Follmer] and I," said Scooter Patrick, who raced against Follmer in the 1973 Can-Am season, "were in a very small group of people who had the opportunity to drive after the wooden wheel but before the computer. I'm glad you had a handicap sticker at Laguna Seca so we didn't have to walk all the way down the hill," he quipped. "I'll leave you with that one."

In fact, this wouldn't have happened if Follmer hadn't helped devise his own success. Two years prior, the United States Auto Club found out that Follmer was dallying between racing series, all with equal success. The organizing body threatened to pull Follmer's racing license. Follmer instead did something curious, something that would forever change motor racing in America: He invoked the Californian "Right To Work" law. Just as an In-N-Out employee can moonlight at Bob's Big Boy on the weekends, so can drivers interchange series and cars to their own varying talents. A simplification, but a profound change at the time: The USAC backed off, and Follmer made good use of the opportunity by winning both Ams. Hence the nickname "George Am," which summed things up nicely.

Follmer won his first race with his first time in the 917, a story that seems too good to be true. Photo by Petersen Automotive Museum

Follmer's last career win was in 1981, at Laguna Seca in Trans-Am. Since then he's led a quiet life in Idaho, occasionally participating in vintage racing, usually behind the wheel of his own car. To hear his friends say it, Follmer, as a racer, was quiet, unassuming, gracious, focused, intense, but also deeply human. You have to be, it seems, to win—and win and win and win again. He "didn't suffer fools lightly," said Posey. When confronted by French driver François Cevert, accusing Follmer of blocking him, the latter said, "If you're faster than me, you should have been able to pass me easier." At the Petersen tribute, 30 years removed, the host joked, "George, are you surprised that we've had half a dozen speakers up here and the term 'anger management' hasn't come up yet?"

Perhaps the last word about Follmer comes from Morton—Datsun champion, BRE hero, rival and eventual teammates with Follmer from Can-Am to Le Mans. "George and I started out as rivals, even though he didn't know it," said Morton. "If I beat Follmer, I'll have beaten the best, and I'll be famous too.

"Well, I never did beat George—I came fairly close a couple times, and I didn't almost get to beat him until 1977. I was in my Lola T332 and I was running second and George was third, and I came in for my last pit stop. It was balky going into first gear to leave, and I accidentally stuck it into reverse and I almost backed over one of my crew members. So George went by, and I finished third. I called my mother after the race, which I often did, and she said, 'Why did you let Follmer beat you?'

"Follmer always beat me, and he always beat a whole lot of people. He was a great driver and there was nobody that could have a career like he's had. I have tremendous admiration for him. George, you're something else."

Follmer, you're still something else.

For more information on George Follmer, check out VPRacing.com's year-by-year account of Follmer's career, as well as this 2006 article from Vintage Motorsportsmagazine by Dave Arnold, on Follmer's own website. And if you're well-heeled enough to be a Petersen Museum Checkered Flag member, you can read an in-depth tribute to Follmer in this quarter's Finish Line magazine, Vol. 18, Issue 4, by William Edgar, from where much of this information is derived. Anything else and you'll just have to get Roger Penske's phone number. Not many people can claim to have him on speed dial.

A book on Follmer is also coming out soon. Follmer: American Wheel Manis by Tom Madigan with a forward by Roger Penske and Parnelli Jones. It is scheduled to release in June 2013 by the ejje Publishing Group. You can order an advance copy here.

Blake Z. Rong
- Associate editor Blake Z. Rong has been with Autoweek since 2012 as an Associate Editor in Los Angeles. He drove his Mazda Miata across the country and believes that no man needs a car any larger or faster. Well, ok, faster, certainly.
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